LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – During much of Tuesday, there was plenty of speculation about who the Orioles were involved with. There were reports the team was near an agreement with free agent reliever Grant Balfour.

Dan Duquette says that’s not true.

“There’s a lot of speculation about that closer thing, and I think the speculation is pretty far out ahead of the market and our involvement in the market,” Duquette said.

“We did make some progress on that in terms of we have a better idea of what the market is there, but we have a lot more work to do.”

The Orioles’ executive vice president of baseball operations said the team has made an offer to a player, but not a closer.

Duquette said he wasn’t focused on second base now. He wanted to deal with adding a hitter who can play the outfield and strengthening the pitching staff.

Near the end of the season, Duquette said he wanted to extend Chris Davis and Matt Wieters. He has not met with their agent, Scott Boras to discuss contract extensions at the meetings.

“There’s a time of the year to do that, and it’s not right now,” Duquette said.

NOTES: The Orioles officially signed Ryan Webb to a two-year contract. The agreement, which was revealed on Friday, was made official when he right-hander passed his physical. The 27-year-old Webb was 2-6 with a 2.91 ERA for Miami last year. In five seasons with the Marlins and San Diego, Webb is 13-15 with a 3.29 ERA.

-Duquette said that there is some interest in the Orioles’ “core” players, but they weren’t going to be traded. There’s interest in some of the team’s younger players, too.

“That’s encouraging for us for our major league team, for coming up to help the team, for us to be able to trade them,” Duquette said. “We have a little bit more depth. It’s not significantly more, but we have a little bit more.”

-Duquette also said that there were some interesting candidates in Thursday’s Rule 5 draft.